Flash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZNtTfFDena4

Chief Executive Tim Cook’s third big hire after the short-lived Mark Papermaster (during Steve Jobs’ second leave) and unpopular John Browett is former Adobe CTO and Flash advocate Kevin Lynch, who will report to the SVP of Technologies Bob Mansfield. It would seem Lynch is pretty set up because Mansfield is set to retire next year and Lynch carries the same VP of Technologies title.

The hire seems to be a very interesting choice, however.

Lynch is a long-time Adobe veteran who came over when the company purchased Macromedia in 2005, largely for its Flash technology. Interestingly, Apple SVP Phil Schiller was the Vice President of Product Marketing at Macromedia, Inc. from December 1995 to March 1997. Lynch served as President of Macromedia Products and then as General Manager of Web Publishing from February 1996 to June 2000. The two likely spent some time together, although it was admittedly a decade and a half ago. Still, the relationship seems to be cordial.

Excellent #WWDC today — including collaboration by Adobe and Apple on Photoshop for Retina. Thanks for the nice call out @pschiller

— Kevin Lynch (@kevinlynch) June 11, 2012

However, Lynch’s recent dealings with Apple haven’t been so friendly…

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As noted by ArsTechnica, Adobe just released an unscheduled patch to address two vulnerabilities that could be the source of malware attacks on both OS X and Windows. Apple has also issued a KB urging users to update. According to the advisory posted by Adobe, the attacks targeted Firefox or Safari users on Mac:

Adobe is also aware of reports that CVE-2013-0634 is being exploited in the wild in attacks delivered via malicious Flash (SWF) content hosted on websites that target Flash Player in Firefox or Safari on the Macintosh platform, as well as attacks designed to trick Windows users into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment which contains malicious Flash (SWF) content.

The update is available through Adobe’s website here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9h2dF-IsH0I]

Everyone has their SOPA/PIPA things today (and that is good!).  Here is ours.

My former professor, Clay Shirky, explains what SOPA and PIPA are, what will happen if these are passed and why it is bad.  He’s good at this stuff.

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You don’t need this software to hack an AppleTV but it makes things easier.

aTV Flash (black) is a user-friendly software package that supercharges your new black AppleTV, unleashing a plethora of new functionality. Don’t worry about the technical details – aTV Flash (black) is simple to use and safe for your AppleTV. Installation is a snap and doesn’t require any physical changes to the AppleTV.

MacUpdate has it for the sale price of $19.99 today only.  AppleTV (2010) went on sale for $89.99 at Amazon matching Best Buy so you are looking at $110 for the whole shebang.  If you have an old AppleTV, they’ve got you covered there as well.  Full features below:

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[vodpod id=Video.15608173&w=650&h=420&fv=]

Here’s the Daily Show link for non-Flash and international (still has ads). “One guy made the Zune, another guy made the iPod”.

Colbert talks about the book as well, below…

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Adobe is finally bringing decent Flash video support to iOS, only it will have to do an on the fly transcoding to do so. The latest release of Flash Media Server, version 4.5, implements new features that will allow same source video delivery thanks to “on demand repackaging” to both Flash and iOS via HTTP Dynamic or Live Streaming.

“Now publishers can simplify their video publishing and protection workflows with Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 with protected HLS support, audio channel extraction, DVR/PVR live, on demand and variant playlists. One set of content without any preparation or additional storage and deliver safely to both Adobe Flash with HDS and to Apple devices using HLS.”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaXvTsoeVs]
Stage 3D Molehill demo

For all of you Adobe Flash and Air fans out there, Adobe has released the next major version of the authoring tool out onto the Internet.  New features of Flash include, Stage3D APIs, 64-bit support, G.711 audio compression for telephony, H.264/AVC SW Encoding, Socket Progress Events and HD surround sound.

Developers can download the betas here.

Full listing of new features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 below:
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Here’s an iPad clone from China, a full 9.7-inch affair based on the Freescale iMX515 hardware. It is powered by a 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 512MB DDRII memory and 4GB Flash. Oh yes, and it is Android-powred with 3G, Wi-Fi and a camera. Cost? Around $277 (in China).  See?  Same Same
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http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoMicroPlayer.swf

According to the WSJ, Apple’s about face on 3rd party app development may have been due to pressure from the FCC:

The concession comes after the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry around June to determine whether Apple had violated antitrust laws with the earlier policy. It isn’t clear if Apple’s move Thursday was in response to the FTC’s investigation, but it will likely be carefully scrutinized by the regulatory agency, said people familiar with the situation.

They also speculate that other platforms may have been a factor:
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Computerworld: The BBC confirms iPhone users watch TV on their devices, while Android users don’t. Is Google’s decision to support the Apple-rejected Adobe Flash video standard on Android phones going to limit the evolution of that company’s mobile OS? Is the implementation anti-‘choice’?

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Google’s attempt to create its own royalty-free video standard took a blow last night on news that MPEG LA has declared the popular H.264 codec will be made available royalty-free forever.

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